n't Edna.
What's got you up so early, missy? I guess you're like the rest of us,
couldn't sleep for thinking of all that's to do for Thanksgiving."

"You ain't picked up the spring-house key nowheres about, have you?"
asked Ira.

"Why, no. You had it?"

"No, I ain't, but sissy there says 'Liance gave it to her to carry and
she ain't no notion of what she done with it, thought mebbe she might
ha' drapped it in here. She got so worried over it she riz from her bed
and come out to hunt it up, says she was afraid nobody couldn't get no
breakfast because of her losing of it."

"I guess we won't suffer for breakfast," said Amanda, looking down
kindly at the little girl. "I don't carry back the milk nights this time
of year. Any that's left I just set in the pantry and there is what was
left from supper this blessed minute; butter, too, and cream, plenty for
breakfast. You just rest your mind on that score."

"But," said Edna, "you will want a whole lot of things for the
Thanksgiving cooking and what will you do with them all locked up?"

Ira laughed. "'Twouldn't be such an awful job to lift the door from its
hinges, and if a body was right spry he could climb in at the window
after he'd prised it open and the things could be handed out. Besides
we've got all the morning's milk and there'll be the night's milk and
to-morrow's milk, so I don't see that we shan't get along first-rate.
There is more than one way out of that trouble, ain't there, 'Mandy?"

"I should say so. Wait till the sun's real high and I guess we'll find
the key fast enough," she said to Edna. "Now, you stay right here and
don't go running about in the cold; you'll be down sick traipsing about
in the wet grass, and then where will your Thanksgiving be?"

Thus warned, Edna was content to stay in the kitchen into which the
morning light was beginning to creep and which was already warm from the
big stove. In a few minutes, Reliance appeared from the next room where
she had been setting the table. She was much astonished to learn that
Edna had been down before her. "What in the world did you get up so soon
for?" she asked.

"To find the key," Edna answered, and then told her all about the
search, ending up with, "You haven't seen anything of it, have you,
Reliance?"

Reliance's face broadened into a smile, as for answer she went behind
the kitchen door and produced the key from its nail, holding it up to
view.

"Why, where in the world did you get